Colin Kaepernick’s lack of a job has been a long-running storyline this offseason, particularly when it comes to whether he’s without a team because of football reasons or because his national anthem protests and other actions last season have led the league to blackball him.
Albert Breer of TheMMQB.com tackled that question by talking to unnamed people with four teams -- three personnel executives and a coach -- about why they didn’t sign Kaepernick. Anyone familiar with the annual rounds of anonymous scouts sharing opinions about players will be familiar with how things play out.
While some have more positive things to say about Kaepernick as a player than others, all four told Breer that the question never went to ownership because they didn’t think Kaepernick would be a good fit for their offenses and needed to be in a specific scheme to be successful.
Those are familiar refrains when it comes to Kaepernick even if there are no shortage of backup quarterbacks on rosters right now who don’t appear to be a clear match for the style of the starter and no shortage of quarterbacks who have thrived in a particular system while having less success when placed outside their comfort zone.
One thing that’s less familiar is that the three personnel execs all mentioned Robert Griffin III while discussing Kaepernick with two wondering why there’s been no fuss about Griffin’s unemployment. Outside of both players being black quarterbacks who have shown an ability to run with the ball, there’s not much the two players have in common.
Griffin had a very good rookie season in 2012 before suffering a knee injury. Kaepernick started for the 49ers in the Super Bowl that year and went back to the NFC title game the next year while Griffin’s play dropped off shortly. Griffin’s played 14 games the last three years as injuries and ineffectiveness led the Redskins to move on to Kirk Cousins and five starts with the Browns last year showed little sign of the player who was once the second-overall pick of the draft.
Kaepernick’s play has also dropped from his early heights and being more capable than Griffin obviously shouldn’t be the bar for NFL employment, but comparing the two players off of 2016 alone is enough to make one skeptical about the football-only focus of this analysis.